We Shouldn't Be Surprised

Batya Medad , 14/01/08 00:00

לבן ריק

צילום: ערוץ 7

Batya Medad

New York-born Batya Medad made aliyah with her husband just weeks after their 1970 wedding and has been living in Shiloh since 1981. Political pundit, with a unique perspective, Batya has worked in a variety of professions: teaching, fitness, sales, cooking, public relations, photography and more. She has a B.S. in Journalism, is a licensed English Teacher specializing as a remedial teacher and for a number of years has been studying Tanach (Bible) in Matan. Batya blogs on Shiloh Musings and A Jewish Grandmother. ...

I'll never forget how my students, terribly embarrassed, told me how they were beaten and that they saw their rabbis grabbed by the police and thrown out of the windows, head-first.

It really galls the Leftist Israeli establishment, politicians, academics, media, judicial, etc. that their youth has dreams of making money and leaving the country. Jealously is the prime mover, motivation in all of their anti-democratic and totalitarian actions.

A few years ago, they began to notice that the elite units in the army and the young officers were primarily from "national religious" backgrounds. At first they didn't care, because it was obvious that a disproportionate amount of soldiers killed in Lebanon were from religious families, meaning that their sons were safer. But then they heard their sons and grandsons calling front-line soldiers "fri'erim," suckers, and they were presented with expensive bills from psychiatrists for army deferments. It began to look like an epidemic, rather than a rare, embarrassing occurrence.

If Dosh was to draw your typical Israeli "new Jew" farmer today, there would be a beard on his face and tzitziot flying out from under his shirt.

A hundred years ago and fifty years ago all of the "great modern Jewish thinkers" predicted, without any doubt whatsoever, that Jewish ritual, strict observance of Jewish Law, was outdated and would end. The truth is the opposite. Most of their descendants, if they have any, aren't Jews, and Torah-observant communities all over the world are growing.

People like me may be "locked out" of the mainstream media, but blogging has given me the opportunity to run my own "news magazine." That's what I think of my blogs. They are the modern, high tech samizdat.

If the Israeli Government goes after me for my opinions, then I'll take it as a vote of confidence that I'm saying the truth.